La Chapelle Royale
Encyclopedia
History
La Chapelle Royale was founded in 1977 in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
by the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
conductor Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe
Philippe Herreweghe is a Flemish conductor.In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher...
. It takes its name from the Chapelle royale
Chapelle royale
The chapelle royale was the musical establishment attached to the royal chapel of the French kings. The term may also be applied to the chapel buildings, the Chapelle royale de Versailles....
of the French kings.
The initial vocation of the ensemble was to interpret the great French repertoire of the 17th century (Henri Dumont
Henri Dumont
Henri Dumont was a Franco-Belgian composer.- Life :Dumont was born to Henry de Thier and Elisabeth Orban in Looz . The family moved in 1613 to Maastricht, where Henri and his brother Lambert were choirboys at the church of Notre-Dame...
, Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...
, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...
, André Campra
André Campra
André Campra was a French composer and conductor.Campra was one of the leading French opera composers in the period between Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau. He wrote several tragédies en musique, but his chief claim to fame is as the creator of a new genre, opéra-ballet...
, Jean Gilles
Jean Gilles
Jean Gilles may refer to:*Jean Gilles *Jean Gilles...
...) but, since 1985, Herreweghe associated it more and more with his own Belgian ensemble, the Collegium Vocale Gent, in a repertoire almost exclusively dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
.
Next to La Chapelle Royale, Philippe Herreweghe also founded the "Ensemble Vocal Européen de la Chapelle Royale".
La Chapelle Royale was, during the 1980s, together with Les Arts Florissants
Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)
Les Arts Florissants is a Baroque musical ensemble in residence at the Théâtre de Caen in Caen, France. The organization was founded by conductor William Christie in 1979. The ensemble derives its name from the 1685 opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The organization consists of a chamber orchestra...
, one of the pillars of the musical revolution known in France and Belgium under the name of "Baroqueux" (see Historically informed performance
Historically informed performance
Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...
or "performance on period instruments"), initiated during the 1970s by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...
and Gustav Leonhardt
Gustav Leonhardt
Gustav Leonhardt is a highly renowned Dutch keyboard player, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. Leonhardt has been a leading figure in the movement to perform music on period instruments...
.
La Chapelle Royale
- 1981 : Motets pour la Chapelle du roy, Henry Du Mont
- 1985 : Grands Motets, Jean-Baptiste Lully
- 1985 : Motet Pour l'Offertoire de la Messe Rouge et Miserere H.219, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
- 1986 : Motets, Josquin des PrezJosquin Des PrezJosquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...
- 1987 : Musikalische Exequien, Heinrich SchützHeinrich SchützHeinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
- 1987 : Requiem, André Campra
- 1988 : Messe de Requiem op.48 - orchestration originale, Gabriel Fauré et Messe des Pêcheurs de Villerville, Gabriel Fauré / André Messager (La Chapelle Royale, Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Louis, Ensemble Musique Oblique)
- 1990 : Requiem, Jean Gilles
- 1991 : Cantates pour basse BWV 82, 56 et 128, Johann Sebastian Bach
La Chapelle Royale with Collegium Vocale Gent
- 1983 : Motets, Johannes Brahms (Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale)
- 1984 : Motets & Psalms, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale)
- 1985 : Matthäus Passion BWV 244, Johann Sebastian Bach (Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale)
- 1986 : Grand Motets, Johann Sebastian Bach (Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale, Orchestre de la Chapelle Royale)
- 1987 : Vespro della Beata Vergina, Claudio MonteverdiClaudio MonteverdiClaudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
(Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale, Saqueboutiers de Toulouse) - 1988 : Johannes Passion BWV 245, Johann Sebastian Bach (Collegium Vocale, Orchestre de la Chapelle Royale)
- 1990 : Cantate Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats BWV 42, Johann Sebastian Bach (Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale)
- 1990 : Magnificat BWV 243, Johann Sebastian Bach (Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale)
- 1996 : Ein deutsches Requiem op.45, Johannes Brahms (Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale, Orchestre des Champs Elysées)
Ensemble Vocal Européen de la Chapelle Royale
- 1989 : Les Lamentations de Jérémie, Roland de LassusOrlande de LassusOrlande de Lassus was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance...
- 1992 : Missa Viri Galilei, PalestrinaGiovanni Pierluigi da PalestrinaGiovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...
All these recordings have been published by Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi is an independent music record label founded in 1958 by Bernard Coutaz in Arles . The Latin phrase means "world harmony"....
.